Thursday, December 15, 2011

"Salvage", art journal.

Every day, my mail box has at least two or three items of junk mail. Most of the time there is waaaay more junk, than actual mail.

I decided to see what I could make out of the junk

I slathered on plenty of gesso

You can still see ghosts of the images

Then I used stencils, stamps, panpastels, ink, and paint to make backgrounds

Everything was placed outside to dry

This neat stack did not last long

Old bits of silk sari ribbon, lace and paper cutouts, were sewn to the pages, using the zigzag stitch, on my sewing machine (plus I just did some stitching on the pages for fun)

I needed to use something a little stronger for the covers...

Rolex obliged me with a couple of thick post card mailings.. (Dunno why they sent me post cards, I have never owned a Rolex and never intend to)

I decided to sew in envelops on the inside front, and inside back covers, for "stuff". Then I punched holes, and did a really simple binding with black, silk sari ribbon. I added a key charm just for fun

back cover

Front cover, embellished with stamping, doodles, old lace, stitching, text from vintage hymnals and watercolor pencils.This project was so much fun! I can't wait to fill it with lots of fun journal entry's!

Awesome idea! I open the junk mail, and when it has a postage free envelope I send it back to the company that sent it! Two good things happen when I do this! #1 postal workers get more mail to deliver and hopefully keep their jobs! # 2 after a few times those company"s stop sending to you! But I am looking for some junk mail again to try this! thanks for sharing !

Argh, I wasn't able to finish my comment, hopefully I will be able to this time! As I said before, I lve your book! I have made one that I found on YouTube that you may be interested in trying. The video is called Smash and Stash, and it's made by a lady from Design Originals. She uses junk mail envelopes for the pages and a paper grocery bag for the cover. She also shows how to bind it using a simple pamphlet stitch.

I hope to see more of your ideas on making books and materials for art journals using up cycled materials!

Thanks for sharing this great idea!Susi

PS: I wish I had a sewing machine so I could add sewing to some of my pages!